I’m hosting a yo-yo meetup in San Francisco this Saturday, October 5th. It will be in Yerba Buena Garden from 3-5pm (near the Metreon). This is an outdoor location, with plenty of food nearby and very easy to access via BART/MUNI/Caltrain.
I made the art for this flier during a communal art jam at the Drawing Room in SF.
The post Yo-Yo Meetup This Saturday in San Francisco appeared first on Doc Pop's Blog.
“The single biggest problem in communication
is the illusion that is has taken place.”
–George Bernard Shaw
Should you find a window into the mental states of other people, consider that you barely have access to your own. Everyone must all plod through denial, self-talk, projection, and trauma to excavate even a nugget of personal truth. Yet you blithely read others like tea leaves: “Susan has trust issues.”
You can’t read minds, so don’t even try.
When you start reading minds, you stop listening. You’re scribbling when you might be paying attention (Don't research and write at the same time) and what you don’t know about other people is everything.
You cannot summarize a novel after reading a single random page. Yet we attempt this feat with people. People are more complicated than books, because people never finish writing themselves. The masks humans wear are like press releases on the status of an active tornado.
Instead of reading people, you can hold space; allow them to sound out the unformed words in their psyche, without judgment. Let them explore their interior and share what they find. Be the one not talking. They aren’t just revealing themselves, they’re finding themselves too.
There is no greater gift than the feeling of being heard. This is the universal craving, as common as the need to breathe.
I like to keep an eye out for cool shapes during my walks and use them as inspiration for my #SidewalkFriends drawings. It’s like my version of hunting for Pokémon.
We just got back from a fun vacation in Hawaii. While we were checking out the awesome murals in Kaka’ako (near Honolulu), I spotted these interesting cracks in the sidewalk. I started this sketch by drawing a face, but then it turned into a wave of some sort. I’ve always loved The Great Wave of Kanagawa, so I used that as inspiration for my wave’s color palette.
Today's #SidewalkFriends sketch is "Sidewalk Surfing". While visiting the murals of Kaka'ako in Honolulu, Hawaii, I noticed some cracks in the sidewalk that served as inspiration for this drawing. I like to take photos while I walk and use those photos as starting points for each of my Sidewalk Friends illustrations. #Procreate #Honolulu #Kakaako #Surf #Hawaii
The post #SidewalkFriends: Sidewalk Surfers appeared first on Doc Pop's Blog.
I like to frame employee retention as tent stakes. When pitching a tent, one hammers tent stakes into the ground to keep the tent from blowing away in a brisk gust of wind. Similarly, in one’s employment, there are specific reasons, articulated or not, why someone sticks with a company.
When reorgs, strategy shifts, and market downturns start ripping up some of the tent stakes, as long as someone has enough remaining in the ground, the tent doesn’t blow away.
Common tent stakes include I like my manager! I like my role! I like my project! I like my teammates! I like the technologies/tools I’m using! I like how much I’m learning! I like the company’s future financial prospects! I like my salary!
The most durable tent stakes are those that are least likely to change – I like the company’s mission! I like the company’s values! I like the CEO! These may not be sufficient on their own to keep someone around, but the employees that have them as tent stakes often have a positive viral effect on the rest of the team.
Understanding your employees’ motivations enables effective change management, and it starts at the recruiting process. Hiring people motivated by the most durable tent stakes and not hiring those who seem overindexed on variables that are the most likely to change allows you to shape your team to one that will stick around through thick and thin.
I’ve also found that the tent stake analogy also applies to personal resilience and mental health. Life’s tent stakes – where one finds satisfaction and self worth – include work, family, hobbies, friends, health, religion, community, possessions, personal achievements, etc. Nothing goes well all the time, and the more places one finds satisfaction, the more places one might seek comfort while hammering a tent stake back down.
But if your life is defined by work and you don’t get that job offer or promotion, or your personal happiness depends on playing sports and you break your arm, your tent may be at risk of blowing off the ridge. Having the time and means to explore in a variety of passions and tent stakes is a luxury, but if you’re fortunate to have that opportunity, taking it can increase your likelihood for sustained satisfaction and happiness.
And according to a song I learned growing up of which I can’t find a trace on the internet, “what’s life? life is a big stack of pancakes.” Probably because “what’s life? life is sustained satisfaction and happiness” doesn’t have the same ring to it.
“The softer the chair, the harder it is to get out of it.”
–Derek Sivers
There are enough Stoic-bros to remind you that “the obstacle is the way,” “the only way is through,” and that “you need a little friction.” Instead of another cold plunge sales pitch, here’s a dose of Scared Straight. Comfort is a curse—a pair of velvet handcuffs—and it promises to doom us all.
Comfort is liberation from pain. Sounds groovy, but pain takes many forms beyond the physical. Boredom, longing, struggle, uncertainty, and grief all register as pain to your mind grapes. We can imagine a world without them—a place called The Comfort Zone. In The Comfort Zone:
There is no boredom, so no one is inspired to create
There is no longing, so no one seeks connection
There is no struggle, so no one tries to change the world
There is no uncertainty, so no one needs to learn a thing
And the absence of grief in The Comfort Zone doesn’t mean there’s no loss—it just means no one cares about it. So, no one knows the meaning of love.
In The Comfort Zone, there’s no debate or conflict or hurt feelings. But all progress relies on humans who dare to say something “wrong” before it’s eventually redefined as “right.” The Comfort Zone is the comformity zone. A One-World World1. The Comfort Zone is empire.
Comfort is why modern life sucks. You weren’t meant to navigate life from a prose position with a palm-sized computer. Comfort is banal: work from home, delivery toothpaste, snackable content, lo-fi beats, athleisure, the numbing soma of social media, whatever hole this serum is supposed to fill:
Perhaps we will choose discomfort again. I suspect the universe will choose for us. It gets worse before it gets better. There is a world beyond the The Comfort Zone and that is nature herself. A realm of chaos and darkness that gives zero fucks about your comfort. She may be the only antidote to our collective curse.
From Defuturing, A New Design Philosophy by Tony Fry, 2020
Back to nature
“Even if you get run over by a clown car and pissed on by a busload of schoolchildren, it's still your responsibility to interpret the meaning of the event and choose a response.”
–Mark Manson
Part of any creative process is sharing work and getting feedback. This nerve-wracking experience is intensified by the prospect of a sharp shard of critique from a peer, the peanut gallery, or a HPPO. Panic not. Take the note, breathe, and resist the temptation to change everything. Not every squeak merits grease.
Too often a creator moves mountains based on a morsel of criticism. You don't do this with positive feedback. When you get an "attaboy" at karaoke you don't rearrange your life to start a rock band. But when a half-interested executive dubs your headline "tortuous", you're ready to chuck it all and get a real estate license.
Remember that you do not welcome all feedback. That note could be useful or it could be a throwaway blurt from an empty stomach. Also, what is expressed is not always what is meant. You might bring your adversary closer to understand their agenda.
Of course, leaning into this fray is what every highly-agreeable, conflict-avoidant, self-critical creative seeks to avoid when they quietly turn every opinion into a to-do. Temper this instinct.
You are obligated to vehemently agree with the feedback you implement. If you don't, you are acting merely to secure approval and that is toxic. Serve the craft, not your comfort. Be an artist, not an order-taker.
You need not be a diva about it, but you should put up a bit of a fight. There might be a tousle to find the truth.
George Saunders spent most of his adult life not as a writer. There are some highlights from an interview he did with Livewire at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, Oregon.
“The default mode is writing stories.”
“No worthy problem is ever solved in the plane of its original conception.”–Albert Einstein
“Don’t be too sure about what you’re doing, so the reader feels involved.”
“You have this incredible urge to love and be love, and yet everything you love is conditional.”
“Fiction can be a way of reaching out to someone and saying, I know it’s hard.”
What is the best non-writing activity to become a better writer?
“Reading. You have to imagine there is this silo over your head, and you’re putting all kinds of stuff in there, and you have to trust that all this stuff will find its way into your artistic body and then at some moment of intuition, you’re not consciously doing it, it’s going to help you.”
How do you know if a story idea is worthwhile?
“My assumption is, if it comes to you without a lot of attachment, then it’s a good idea. And then you have to wait for it to come out of its ‘plane of original conception’ and that’s kind of an act of faith. What it means, when you’re locked up in a story, that’s your story saying to you, ‘you’re underestimating me. You think you know what I’m about!’ You wait it out and in time, the story will start to lead you. So assume it’s a good idea, and anything that looks like a mistake is a way of leading you to higher ground.”
How do we keep that magic?
“The magic means, write things you have strong visceral opinions about. So much of writing is reacting to things you’ve done. If writing isn’t fun, how do you know where to go? Even if it’s serious.”
See the Rules of the road for writers
by An interview with George Saunders at September 18, 2024 07:00 AM
The Communal Table is a weekly art jam at The Drawing Room in San Francisco. There are plenty of tables, art supplies, beverages, and even a live band.
I had a great time at the event and highly recommend checking it out if you are in town. It happens every Friday from 6-10pm at Drawing Room SF (on the corner of Valencia and 17th St). It is all ages and very family friendly.
Here’s a self-portrait I made that night using whatever pens, watercolors, white out, and acrylic I could get my hands on:
The post Friday Night Art Jams at The Drawing Room SF appeared first on Doc Pop's Blog.
Connecting your WordPress site to the Fediverse is a great way to reach your audience and increase blog comments. In this episode of The Fediverse Files I teach you how to connect your site to the fediverse using ActivityPub for WordPress plugin.
The post Fediverse Files #5: How to Connect Your WordPress Site To The Fediverse appeared first on Doc Pop's Blog.
They’re always fighting over who will take out the trash
“Ye live not for yourselves; ye cannot live for yourselves; a thousand fibres connect you with your fellow-men, and along those fibres, as along sympathetic threads, run your actions as causes, and return to you as effects.”
-Henry Melvill
It's basic physics. All objects are in motion, including soft human people. And the energy your soft human person carries affects everyone else. Vibes beget vibes. Be mindful of the vibes you bring.
The impact of vibes cannot be understated.
Your bad mood, a single sharp word, can shift the temperature of an entire room. A tantrum at the bookstore can infect strangers with annoyance, weariness, or fear. Similarly, a single kind word can change the chemical composition of an entire city block. A selfless act can spark hope, courage, or inspiration—even in people you've never met.
We cannot help but be affected by each others' vibes, because we are all swimming in the same pool.
Vibes is short for "vibration," of course. This metaphor is about motion. The right vibes can help you do things and move people. If you mean to attempt the impossible (and I hope you do), you need momentum, and force, and energy.
The bliss of alignment en masse is called harmony. Periodic motion in synchrony. Everything and everyone is affected by the energy you bring—and the sympathetic threads will connect back to you too. Because all is in motion. This is basic physics.
I like to keep an eye out for cool shapes during my walks and use them as inspiration for my #SidewalkFriends drawings. It’s like my version of hunting for Pokémon.
Normally, I start with a photo of something on the ground, but today’s sketch was inspired by looking at the ceiling above. A friend installed a dance pole in her living room, and I liked the way the mid-day light reflected around it.
Today’s #SidewalkFriends sketch: Snail Mail.
Normally, I start with a photo of something on the ground, but today's sketch was inspired by looking at the ceiling above. A friend installed a dance pole in her living room, and I liked the way the mid-day light reflected around it. #ProcreateArt
I’ve been using my iPad from 2016 for most of my Sidewalk Friends project, but I finally upgraded to an iPod Pro from 2022. It’s rad so far.
The post #SidewalkFriends: Snail Mail appeared first on Doc Pop's Blog.
The Pride of West Virginia
“Life doesn't fuck you once.”
– Ness
If things in life feel hard, here's something to think about: it gets worse before it gets better. This is neither good news or bad news. It's the God's honest truth, and you deserve to know.
It shouldn't be a surprise. Life isn't a chart that goes "up and to the right." Today isn't always better than yesterday. That would make every day the best day of your life.
"Up and to the right" is a fallacy held by the citizens of teenager empires. It's the tendency to tug the velveteen comfort of the past into the opaque glass future. It is to beg everything and everyone to stay the same.
Older civilizations, jaded by bitter experience, embrace the circle instead of the skyward ray. Samara, yin yang, rota fortunae. Nothing lasts forever, because there is no past and there is no future. There is only now.
Life is the cycle between order and chaos. Light and dark. Red and blue. You'll need sunglasses. You'll need an umbrella. You can do whatever you want. You'll never get it all done.
If things in life feel soft, here's something to think about: it gets better before it gets worse. The most generous sun is felled by gentle twilight. The most callous night is silenced by the quiet dusk. This is neither good news or bad news.
Ricky Rat, a local illustrator and graff writer, is putting together an art show/fundraiser featuring 100+ artists. Each artist made a piece of art on the side of a brown paper bag. Here’s a quick video I shot of Ricky describing the show:
I made a piece of art for the show too! I painted this “Egg MacGuffin” piece on the side of a McDonald’s bag, which is probably the first time I’ve been in a McDonalds in maybe 10 years. This is probably the first painting (non-digital art) that I’ve made in at least 5 years! A lot of “firsts” happening here 
When I came up with the MacGuffin idea, I knew I wanted to have some shiny foil to create the effect of light emanating from the hamburger box. I foolishly assumed I’d use the aluminum foil on my hamburger, but I didn’t realize McDonald’s uses wax paper to wrap their burgers these days (at least they did for my $1.75 burger). So I used some golden foil from Dandelion Chocolate bars instead.
reference photo
quick digital sketch
first layer of paint
Bags4Us opens this Saturday, August 31st 2024, at Strike-Slip Gallery in the Mission (201 Guerrero St) from 5-10pm. All proceeds from this show go to Us4Us, a local nonprofit. If you can’t make the show, there’s a chance you can see it hanging for the next few days in the gallery, but I can’t confirm that.
The post Bags4Us Art Show In San Francisco This Saturday appeared first on Doc Pop's Blog.
In the age of clipper ships and bodices and Jules Verne, stepping on the moon was pure fantasy. A century later, it was in the newspapers. How does the transition from magic to manifest take place? Sometimes, if you do the math, you can do anything.
This will infuriate my high school English teacher (sorry, Mr. Skilleter), but some challenges in life require a bit or reckoning. Yes, you need imagination, willing minds, and a vivid vision of your future. But even pursuits less celestial than space travel take the crunching of numbers.
Want to learn to paint/sew/write? It will take time. How much time? An arbitrary stab says 500 hours. Where will you find those hours? Perhaps you have two whole hours a day (one before and one after work). That's 10 hours a week. Do the math and you have your still life/romper/screenplay in under a year.
"Do the math" simply means "figure it out."
Figure comes from old Latin, figura: "Lines forming a shape." We use figure to mean a numeral, or a picture, or a body. As a verb it is more potent. To figure is to believe, to calculate, and ultimately to appear. It is imagination, a willing mind, and a vision made manifest.
Every audacious mountain is a sum of modest boulders and timorous stones. Doing the math reveals the routines you need to climb the unclimbable and Routine is doing what you want. Do the math and even the impossible becomes possible.
On September 9, 2020, smoke from several large wildfires in California filled the air, giving the entire day a burnt orange tint across parts of the Bay Area. Although the preceding weeks had already been smoky, something about this day created an unforgettable phenomenon. In San Francisco, we call it “the day of the red sun.”
This day has been on my mind lately, so I wrote some posts on Mastodon and Threads about it.
On September 9, 2020, #SanFrancisco experienced "the day of red sun" due to massive smoke from a series of nearby wildfires.
I was able to find some footage of Highway 101 on that day using the historic view option on Google Street View. Does anyone know of any other footage captured on Google Maps from that same day?
In reply to these posts, many folks shared their own photos and stories from the day of red sun. It was fascinating to look through all of these, so I rounded up a few here for anyone who is interested.
20th and Shotwell
@docpop a lot of folks downloaded Halide that day because the standard iPhone camera app couldn’t get the white balance right.
@docpop No video but here are views from The Embarcadero looking east and North Beach looking west taken at noon. At the time, I sent them to a friend who asked if they were manipulated and I said, “Only if you count setting the WB to daylight…”
@docpop a lot of folks downloaded Halide that day because the standard iPhone camera app couldn’t get the white balance right.
@docpop I took this one at high noon. Got to keep driving while the world burns down because of driving.
Post by @marriedwdinnerView on Threads
Post by @jeffreyView on Threads
Post by @rin3yView on Threads
Post by @ckopyarView on Threads
Post by @prettysillysarahView on Threads
Post by @kim_strimlanView on Threads
Post by @dandesignsoneView on Threads
Post by @crumblydonut_realView on Threads
The post Sharing Photos From “The Day Of Red Sun” in San Francisco appeared first on Doc Pop's Blog.
Journey into the deep
“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people.”
–Anne Lamott
"What's your greatest weakness?" is an insipid question. "I'm a perfectionist" is an egregious answer. The occasional pang of perfectionism is OK; it's unforgivable to choose it as a badge. So in case there was any confusion about it, perfectionism isn't cute. Reject this label and all that comes with it.
Enrolling in perfectionism is tempting because you get to admit to a flaw coated in a thin candy shell. But identifying as a perfectionist isn't self-deprecating. You are elevating yourself as an agent of perfection. You have declared "nothing is good enough for me," and punctuated it with a hairflip.
It's like adding "I'm a wee bit narcissistic" or "I've got a touch of prejudice" to your dating profile. Perfectionism isn’t a personality: it’s destructive, addictive, and oppressive. When you call yourself a perfectionist you are saying:
I believe I am exempt from failure
I believe I deserve competence without training
I believe the friction of making shouldn't apply to me
I believe I am exempt from judgment (except my own hot puddle of self-judgment)
I believe it's better to do nothing than to have attempted at all
I'm here to tell you, with love, that you are not perfect. You will never be perfect. You are not even “perfectly” imperfect. Perfect is not a thing.
Live the life of an imperfectionist instead: your first ideas will suck, so murder your first born ideas. You will probably wander the forest; trust that the waste is what works. You think your job is to produce genius, but that’s a delusion: just make it edible. You will proceed with doubt, but you are not your thoughts.
Perfectionism isn't cute. Don't pretend you want to be perfect, especially not out loud. If you ask me, you're better than perfect, because perfect isn't a thing anyone wants to be. Perfect is destroyed when it is touched, which means perfect cannot be loved.
Having recently watched Eno, the documentary about Brian Eno and his influence on generative electronic music, I started thinking about the history of the THX Deep Note that plays at the beginning of some movies. The music was created by Andy Moorer, who used a computer to create the sound of 30 synthetic voices playing 4 bars of random glides at 60 bpm, then landing on a “slightly detuned” D Major chord.
Even the most talented musicians couldn’t play a piece of music the exact same way every time, which inspired Andy to create music that would also be different each time it was played. By using the date and time on his computer to help create a random seed, Andy was able to create music that was different every time he played it on his computer. Whether he was generating it live for Michael Jackson or George Lucas himself, each time would be slightly different. It really wasn’t until it was recorded in December of 1982, that the THX Deep Note sound became the iconic sound we hear today.
To learn more, I highly recommend listening to this two-episode podcast by 20 Thousand Hertz:
As a side note; “Eno”, the documentary that I mentioned at the top of this post, was awesome. Every time it plays, it’s slightly different. The producers use a bit of randomness to insert scenes into some versions of the film that are not in other versions, which means that the version I saw on Saturday was different than the version that my friends saw on Sunday.
So we had a fun time talking about the movie and occasionally they would talk about something like the scene with the Suzuki Omnichord. I’d be like, “What?!” because there wasn’t an Omnichord in the version I saw. It’s a really cool experience. And if you’re interested in generative art, I highly recommend checking out “Eno”.
The post The history Of the THX Deep Note appeared first on Doc Pop's Blog.
Above the Clouds
I spotted this great flier for the San Francisco Underground Comic Convention and I wanted to help spread the word. I’m not an organizer of the event, but I hope to show up and maybe sell some comics.
The 4th Annual SF Underground Comic Convention (#SFUCC) will be at the Vanguard Lab on 531 Jessie Street (in the Mission) from noon till 10pm. Dead Crow World World Media, Red Apple Comics (who made the flier art), Mission Mini Comics, and many more will be there. Plus, there will be a free screening at 8pm of “Portrait Of A Human”.
Anyone can table. No fees or pre-registration required; just bring a table and some comics. How punk is that? Very. It is very punk.
The post The 4th Annual San Francisco Underground Comic Convention appeared first on Doc Pop's Blog.
As Drew Daniel woke from uneasy dreams, he found himself at the center of a new musical micro-genre called “Hit Em”. Drew, an English professor at Hopkins and one half of the band called Matmos, made a viral post on X about a surreal new musical genre:
had a dream I was at a rave talking to a girl and she told me about a genre called “hit em” that is in 5/4 time at 212 bpm with super crunched out sounds thank you dream girl
Drew Daniel on X, July 29th, 2024
As the post went viral, musicians from all around the world responded, offering their own perspectives on this niche musical genre.
hit em https://t.co/7D0KwMTmT9 pic.twitter.com/3qrms5Ojdt
— jane (@janeplne) July 30, 2024
Is it too late to post mine? pic.twitter.com/jnyMaHZY1P
— AlchemEve (@alchemeve) August 6, 2024
HIT EM!
— Pepsi® (@ioansnake) July 31, 2024pic.twitter.com/7GtHoaLQv6
throwing my hat in the ring, my take on hit em
— jetski 3 (@jetskitosway2) July 30, 2024https://t.co/ecop6dp3gp pic.twitter.com/rUFuwDzezz
With all these great tracks getting shared online, Machinedrum announced that he is working with Drew Daniel on a compilation of “Hit Em” tracks that musicians were submitting. But Suitably Bizarre records may have beat the to the punch with “Disposable Heroes of Hit Em“, a totally different compilation of Hit Em tracks that was released on bandcamp this morning.
Disposable Heroes of Hit Em by VariousThe post Hit Em: A Musical Dream Come True appeared first on Doc Pop's Blog.
"I used to think the human brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this."
–Emo Philips
How certain are you that the Earth revolves around the sun?
Take a breath and consider what you know. You (presumably) haven't done the requisite calculations. You (likely) haven't left this planet to inspect the situation for yourself. Instead, you (probably) earned your certainty from the lips of a pants-wearing primate whom you have no reason to doubt.
Certainty is a feeling, not a fact. It's a story. (To be precise, it’s a love story with something you want to believe.) Such stories are worth holding with a relaxed grip, because everything becomes Jessica eventually.
Now, the prescription here is not a suppository of endless Cartesian skepticism. This is merely a reminder:
That feeling in your chest is the exact same feeling felt by your dead wrong ancestors. Certainty wasn't invented in 1947. Human hardware has been the same for an eon. Pants-wearing primates of yore were certain that the sun revolved around the Earth, or that "there be dragons," or that you should never, ever, wear brown shoes with a black belt.
You might think your ancestors fools, but they are us. Someday the object of your certainty may be revealed to be smoke. You may even wake one day to the impossible.
It is not enough to be open minded. Because certainty is a feeling, you must open your heart as well. The truth is what we believe for now. The heart of that sentence is "we."
You must make space for all of the world's stories, even the ones you can't yet feel with certainty.
Certainly Strange
Doctor Popular
I Like Turtles
I before E except Gleitzman
Matt Spitz
Monoprinciples
Vivek Sri
Last updated:
October 05, 2024 09:30 PM
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